Posted on
Tuesday 27 September 2011

No, there’s no such thing as a BMW X2; today’s my birthday, so I picked two BMWs that would make perfect birthday gifts. For me. Not to be greedy or anything, but…

Both cars just happen to be for sale on mye28.com right now; first up is a 1984 European 520i. Not a lot of photos, which is always a bit of a worry with a car for sale online, but it sounds nice…

I’m selling my ’84 520i. It’s a basic, no-frills European spec car with its original bumpers, headlights, manual windows and locks. I imported it from Canada 14 months ago, and it’s never missed a beat in about 10,000 entertaining miles, including daily commuting and a fun romp through the mountains of British Columbia in the Spring Thaw Classic Car Tour.

Some of you may have seen this car at 5er fest west 2010 in Portland.

$2950 or best offer. Located in Seattle. Contact me at 646 257 3820 or e28 at g93 dot net

It’s powered by a two liter M20 six-cylinder. Not the fastest car I’ve owned, but with a 4.10 diff and weight roughly equivalent to a us-spec 3-series (E30) of the same vintage, it acquits itself nicely on the road.

White exterior, and a pine green interior. Better than it sounds. As far as I can tell, the only options are the sunroof and a factory tow hitch. Not sure how much one can tow with two liters and 129 horsepower.

Everything is manual. Seats, sunroof, locks and windows. If you’ve ever owned a German car of this vintage, you’ll understand the upside: much less to go wrong.

Lots of neat little euro features like bumpers, city lights, a factory fire extinguisher mounted under the driver’s seat, a rear fog light and a tow hitch.

Never federalized — it was imported under the NHTSA’s exemption for cars 25 years old, which requires no changes from original spec. Have title and all importation paperwork.

Recent work, all in April of this year (not including regular oil changes):
1. Refreshed front brake calipers, discs and pads. New brake fluid.
2. All new fuel lines.

Issues:
Straight, but cosmetically imperfect. A touch of northwest top-down rust at the base of the rear window and under the sunroof panel, and a few dings here and there. There’s also a minor crease just ahead of the rear taillight on the passenger side.

Gauge cluster is largely inoperative. The temp sensor works; everything else is either inaccurate or inoperative, including the odometer and speedometer. The tachometer looks like it isn’t original, and must have come from an eta car. Odometer reads 166,000km.

Original Bavaria stereo doesn’t work, and the antenna is missing.

Cracked dash.

One tiny tear in the driver’s seat.

I love my 528e, but of course, the want for more horsepower is always there. With this 520i there isn’t a big step up in HP (129hp from the 2.0L M20 in Euro trim vs. ~120 with the US 2.7L M20) but this car weighs several hundred pounds less than a bone-stock US 528e like mine. No air conditioning (mine doesn’t work anyway) manually operated windows, door locks, seats, sunroof all means less weight, and much less to go wrong. Less is definitely more.

There are lots of things going for this car, but there are a few things I would change. It’s currently equipped with drum brakes on the rear wheels, so I would probably upgrade them to disks. And as appealingly different the cloth seats might be, nothing beats a set of nice leather seats. In black. Hold the power, please. The 14″ steel wheels with dog dish hubcaps are different (for the US e28 world), and I’m sure they are nice, but even nicer still would be a set of Style 5 alloy wheels, and a slightly lower ride height. And some wider tires while we’re at it. Both changes would be easily reversed, which satisfies the latent purist in me.

But then there’s the gearhead in me that wants to take this lightweight machine and stuff as much HP under the hood as possible; a TCD Stage 2 kit would likely bolt in with no problem, and nearly triple the output with a few tweaks. Or drop an M30B35 motor from an e32/e34 into it for a quick 210hp… This car thing would absolutely fly. What a great birthday idea! And the tire guys would absolutely love me; I’d be their best customer.

Again, the seller doesn’t provide much in the way of photos, but the car is well known among the mye28.com brethren and is spoken highly of by many, as is the seller. And the seller’s written description… Wow:

So.. it’s with much regret I have to sell my 5er as I’m moving back to Australia, and.. well.. it can’t come with me. Bawl

I purchased this as a stock 87 535is back in late 2004 to replace an 86 535i that had been wrecked earlier the same year.

The Mtech front and rear were the look I always wanted on a 5er, so I set about sourcing a used set, reconditioning them, getting them painted and installing!

I have receipts for all this, the MTech kit alone was $1500 used, and it was silver when I purchased it. Those who’ve done a euro conversion know there are issues with this. The holes along the front under the grille for the US bumper top skirt had to be welded shut and painted over. I had to fabricate mounts in the front for the euro bumpers, the studs inside the MTech were all broken and needed work, it was basically a bare MTech kit, the additional parts & brackets probably ran me at least another $800-900 just to get it on the car. (There’s a set of euro bumpers underneath I had to buy, the tow hook covers alone were over $100 for the pair).

In addition, I purchased all the hardware under the MTech including the Euro MTech fiberglass front air deflector ($150 as I recall), mounts for the lights, the reinforcement bars for the rear, tow hook covers, fog light covers etc etc.. all brand new – basically every metal and plastic piece a factory MTech has underneath it, this car has (brake ducts included). And it’s all only 6-7yrs old. I’d seen the bumpers under MTech kits rust before, so my metal bumpers were stripped and painted to try to prevent this.

At the same time, I had the kevlar authentic Hartge wing I purchased new, installed and painted. The antenna position on the US cars is farther back than the Euro cars, so you’ll notice there’s no antenna either, a patch was welded in place to close the hole, then entire panel was resprayed.

I had about 40% of the car repainted at this time as it had some room for improvement, it’s a PERFECT paint match to the point that no one has ever been able to tell me which panels are resprayed without me telling them. I had the work done at a body shop that does a lot of BMW insurance work and they didn’t disappoint.

The door 3/4 trim and the trim around the front and rear windows are the actual M5 parts, not just the silver stuff painted black.

Maybe I’m biased, but this is a frickin amazing car. I just went to pick up lunch earlier today and ended up driving 20miles just because it was so much fun.

I’ve driven this car to 5erFest 05, 06, 07 (it’s in the front row centre of the group photo all 3 years), Vintage 08, and 5erFest 11 (which is where all the photos posted are from).

1987 535is 191,000 miles.
WBADC7409H17156xx
Zinnoberrot (Cinnabar Red) exterior
Perlbeige Interior
Factory 3.25 LSD
Car has never been in an accident, all original panels intact (the US bumpers still had matching VIN stickers in them when they were removed).

Problem areas:
Slight clearcoat peel in one place on the corner of the C pillar (I’d probably have to show you to notice).
The brake light warning on the check control is almost always lit up. The lights work, I just never bothered to fix it.
There’s a knock sound in the rear right when you drive hard over a bump, the wise folks say it’s probably an upper strut mount.
Slight creak from the steering sometimes near full lock – the hydraulic system leaks the tiniest amount, I’ve topped it up maybe 4 times the entire time I’ve owned it.
Slight oil drip.
There’s a crack in the dash, however there’s also a dash mat installed so you won’t see it smile
Honestly, I think that’s about it.

Free Parts Included:
New Trunk Seal
New Valve Cover Gasket
4 Replacement Exhaust Gaskets (fit between the two exhaust sections on the Euro setup, they’re not always reusable when you put it back together)
MTech side skirts, already painted red (at the same time I had the other paint done), complete with brand new installation hardware – I just fell in love with the look without so much I never installed them.
(more as I catalog them)

I love this car, and I really want it to go home with someone that’ll take good care of her.

I do have one disclaimer – the 17″ BBS RK wheels I plan to keep for my next 5er in Australia, the buyer and I will discuss wheel options but I do have a set of 15″ style 5s to put back on the car.

PS: Thanks for posing Tim and Randy!

There’s not much more to be done with this car, and although it looks good with the wheels shown in the photos, the Style 5 would look great too. There are no photos, but one of the photos in the gallery shows an open door, which reveals the run-of-the-mill tan interior. Black would suit this car better, but it still wouldn’t make me turn it out of the garage.